Back Alley Finds

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

When all your money gets tied up in home renovations, you have to be a little creative when it comes to furniture and accessories. Luckily, while driving to one of the factories I spotted this little chair dumped outside of an apartment building. The white paint was chipping off and the blue cushion was stained beyond repair, but I knew it was waiting to be turned into something wonderful.

A couple of fresh coats of left over trim paint + spare fabric I found in the warehouse at work + an inexpensive stapler from Home Depot and I have myself the perfect little guest room chair!

Mr. Budget was very happy with my free back alley find and now the guest bedroom doesn’t look so empty. Next I will be on the hunt for a bed side table.

Burgoo

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

Remember when I went to new restaurants all the time? Yea, that was fun. I told Chad if we ever won the lottery that’s what I would do with my life. I would dedicate it to food. And restaurants.

For my birthday dinner this year we ventured into the hipster neighbourhood of Main Street and checked out Burgoo. It was a very hot day and despite the fact that everyone around us was ordering salads and sandwiches, we decided to order dishes that would have been suitable to eat in the middle of winter. Needless to say, despite their absolute deliciousness, we could not finish them. Heat overload.

I’m a sucker for strong lemon aids. Especially ones with strawberries in them.

Hummus is our latest obsession. This one was TO DIE FOR.

Beef Bourguignon hon hon. I had it for lunch the next day. Mighty fine indeed.

Mac & Cheese is something I try to make but am never happy with the results. I guess it is best left to the professionals.

I love getting new jewelry from work and then putting it in a drawer at home and never wearing it. I am a great collector. This time I actually wore something.

I may be obsessed with Moscato now thanks to my God Father.

I finally learned to ask for pictures to be taken to commemorate events. If you don’t have group shots, you have nothing.

Whoa whoa whoa. Whats this? An outfit photo? I know, right? So bizarre. I figured since I liked this little outfit I put together, I should probably get a shot of it. Chad reminded me that I only look good in these photos when I make an angry face or look away from the camera. He was right. Smiling directly into the lens never works.

Also, flickr decided to go and makes itself all fancy, which I’m not too happy about and even though all the ratios of my photos are correct, the vertical ones look weird, right? I don’t know why people can’t leave well enough alone.

Happy Belated Birthday to ME.

Riverview Hospital – West Lawn

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

A few years ago a friend was on set filming a movie at Riverview Hospital in the Crease Clinic. She posted some of her photos from the inside of the building and after seeing them online I became obsessed.

I have a weird fascination with old psychiatric hospitals like Riverview, mostly because the buildings are old and there is an element of history and heritage to them, but also because modern medicine has come so far that I find it fascinating learning about what procedures used to be used on those with mental health issues. I once spent an entire day reading up on lobotomies. Its this weird and sick fascination that told me I needed to go to Riverview myself.

On one of my days off last week I met up with my cousin and we went down to Riverview for a photo walk. We took a lot of photos so I will post them building by building First up is West Lawn, the oldest and creepiest building on the property. It opened in 1913 (happy 100th Birthday!) and treating the 300 most seriously ill male patients in BC at the time. In 1983 the Province closed West Lawn due to advancements in treatment and funding cutbacks. The building has essentially not been touched since then.

Strip Sand Stain Seal

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

When we moved into the house, a lot of hand me down furniture came with us. In fact, 85% of the our furniture consists of hand me downs.

A friend of my Moms was replacing her dining room table. It was old and needed some TLC but she asked us if we wanted it anyways. While the table was not something I would have gone out and purchased myself, a free table is a free table and I was very thankfully we were recipients of such generosity.

The table was pretty banged up and while the original colour was nice, it really didn’t go with anything in our house, so we knew a refinishing project was at hand.

I decided to take some days off around my birthday to dedicate to the refinishing of this table. I have been a part of / witness to quite a few wood refinishing projects so I was quite confident in this task. Plus, we were going for a rustic look, so anything that wasn’t “perfect” would probably look pretty cool.

We started off stripping the original stain and sealer from the wood. I picked up an inexpensive brand that was recommended to me by one of the staff at Home Depot. It worked a lot quicker then indicated on the tin and came off pretty easy.

The sides and legs of the table had some small detail which made the stripping a little more difficult. Thankfully I had some wire brushes left over from when we did the cabinet doors in the apartment (yes, 6 years ago) that worked. Stripping detailed surfaces is a lot more work then smooth surfaces.

Gloves are essential. Stripper HURTS when it comes in contact with your skin. Even a teeny tiny drop.

The difference between the unstripped side and the stripped side.

After we finished stripping Chad sanded everything down.

It looked quite nice all naked like.

We wanted to go with a stain that was darker then our hardwood floors. Our floors are coffee / espresso so the only thing darker was ebony. We were hoping for it to actually look black, but the colour of the natural wood had a different finish in mind.

Ebony & Ivory

After two coats, this is what it looked like. Dark, but not black. Lighting makes a big difference and in some lights it looks darker than this and in some it looks redder than this.

Different areas of the table also absorbed the stain differently. There was one leg that barely absorbed anything and other parts that were full on black. You can kind of get a sense of that here. Chad thinks it may have to do with the way he sanded. This is an example of it not being “perfect”. Luckily, we think the effect is kind of cool.

The finished product!

We sealed it 4 times with a diamond finish water based sealer (no high gloss in this household) sanding in between coats.

You can see the bizarre colour absorption in the legs.

Table top vs. the floor

Despite our best sanding efforts, there were still scratches, marks and weird notches that became very visible once we stained the table. Again, given the fact that we were going for a rustic look, all these marks added to the character of the table.

We are very happy with the way it turned out. Now it is actually a beautiful center piece to the room instead of something I felt I had to hide with a table cloth.

I’m not 100% sure what to do with the chair situation. I was thinking of recovering the ones that came with the table, but Chad is not a huge fan of them. Currently we have been using the black leather ones from the apartment, which are comfortable and look good. I think in the mean time we will buy two more so we have a set of 6. Eventually I would love to get some old wooden ones and refinish them to match.

Modern Farmhouse, baby!

Mundy Park Photo Walk

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Smelly Danielly

One of the things I love about the location of our house is its proximity to Mundy Park. There is nothing better then having a giant forest walking distance from your home. Last weekend we finally took a minute out of our busy schedules to pop over and check it out.

Mundy park is pretty big so we only walked one of the many paths that run throughout it. Despite the fact that it is surrounded by streets, cars, houses and people, once you are on a trail, you can not hear anything but nature. It is wonderful.

We came across so many people walking their dogs and it made both of us anxious to get a pup of our own. Maybe after the drain tile summer project of death is finished we will seriously look into getting a furry friend. I think we are due for one.